ONCJ 2016

A former Designated Public Office Holder was charged with three counts of violating the Lobbying Act: (1) undertaking to communicate with public office holders on behalf of the Energy Policy Institute of Canada regarding policy development; (2) arranging a meeting between public office holders and EPIC members; and (3) undertaking to communicate with public office holders regarding the awarding of a grant to the Canada School of Energy and Environment.

The court found that the prohibition on lobbying activities by former senior government officials applies regardless of whether communications were initiated by government officials, and that an undertaking to lobby need not be express or written.

The court convicted on all three counts, finding that the accused's actions constituted lobbying under the Lobbying Act despite his arguments that the activities were informational only or that he was acting in his personal capacity.

A First Nations woman pleaded guilty to multiple drinking and driving offences and related charges.

The court found that Ontario's failure to proclaim the curative discharge provision violated the equality rights of Indigenous offenders under the Charter.

The court applied a remedial approach under s. 24(1) of the Charter and granted curative discharges on the impaired driving counts, finding that intensive culturally-based treatment through an accredited NNADAP facility was in the public interest.

The decision emphasizes the intergenerational trauma stemming from residential schools and the need for a realistic, progressive approach to assessing treatment success for Indigenous offenders.

A youth offender pled guilty to three offences under the Criminal Code: procuring a person under 18 to provide sexual services, receiving financial benefit from the sale of sexual services, and advertising the sale of sexual services.

The offender, aged 17 at the time of the offences, recruited two underage girls (ages 15 and 16) into prostitution over a two-day period in July 2015, acting as their pimp and collecting the proceeds.

The Crown sought a custodial sentence of 9-12 months, while the defence sought a non-custodial sentence.

The court imposed a deferred custody and supervision order for six months (credited as time served due to restrictive bail conditions) followed by two years probation with strict conditions.

A dangerous offender application hearing where the Crown sought to prove contested facts regarding sexual offences against multiple adolescent girls and children.

The accused had pleaded guilty to 34 charges involving numerous sexual offences.

The Crown sought to establish additional discreditable conduct that predated the existing charges, which had originally been charged under the Youth Criminal Justice Act.

The court heard evidence from four complainant witnesses and assessed credibility and reliability of their testimony against the beyond reasonable doubt standard applicable to contested facts in dangerous offender proceedings.

The accused was charged with assault contrary to s. 266 of the Criminal Code following an altercation outside a bar.

The complainant alleged the accused punched her in the face, causing her to fall to the ground.

The accused claimed he did not make physical contact and that the complainant tripped and fell on her own.

The central issue was the credibility and reliability of witness evidence.

The court found the complainant's evidence, corroborated by video evidence and the testimony of a sober independent witness, established that the accused rushed toward the complainant with an extended arm and made contact with her head area, causing her to fall.

The accused's evidence was found to be inconsistent with the video record and other credible evidence.

The court found the Crown proved the allegation beyond a reasonable doubt and entered a conviction.

The accused was charged with care or control of a motor vehicle while impaired by alcohol and while his blood alcohol level exceeded the legal limit.

The Crown and defence agreed that the accused was in care or control and that his blood alcohol level exceeded 80 mg/100 mL.

The remaining issues were whether the Crown proved alcohol impairment, whether the demand for breath samples was made without reasonable grounds contrary to s. 8 of the Charter, and whether any breath test readings should be excluded under s. 24(2).

The court found that the officer had reasonable grounds for the demand based on observations of impairment and erratic driving.

The court found the accused's ability to operate the vehicle was significantly impaired by alcohol based on observed signs including slurred speech, unsteadiness, poor motor skills, and inability to remain conscious.

The court convicted the accused on both charges.

The accused was charged with impaired driving and operating a motor vehicle with a blood alcohol level exceeding 80 mg per 100 ml of blood following a RIDE spot check.

The impaired charge was dismissed due to lack of evidence of impairment.

On the Over 80 charge, the defence raised multiple Charter breaches including timing of breath samples, failure to videotape, lost evidence, lack of reasonable grounds, and denial of right to counsel.

The court rejected all Charter breach arguments and found the Crown proved the accused operated a motor vehicle with a blood alcohol level over the legal limit.

Conviction entered.

The accused was stopped at a RIDE checkpoint and arrested for driving under suspension after failing an approved screening device test.

A search incident to arrest revealed crack cocaine in his possession.

The defence sought exclusion of the cocaine evidence under s. 24(2) of the Charter, alleging three breaches: arbitrary arrest under s. 9, unreasonable search under s. 8, and failure to provide complete right to counsel information under s. 10(b).

The court found no Charter breaches and admitted the evidence.

The accused was found guilty of possession of cocaine.

The applicant sought a stay of proceedings under s.11(b) of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms based on delay.

The Information was sworn 15 months prior, and this was the third trial date.

The court applied the Jordan framework and found that while the net delay of 15 months fell below the presumptive ceiling of 18 months for the Ontario Court of Justice, the defence had demonstrated both a sustained effort to expedite proceedings and that the case took markedly longer than it should have.

The Crown failed to take reasonable steps to expedite the proceedings, particularly when the assigned Crown was unavailable at the scheduled trial start time, resulting in the trial not being completed as scheduled.

The court granted the stay of proceedings.

The defendant appealed his conviction for careless driving, challenging the trial judge's dismissal of a Charter section 11(b) application regarding delay in trial.

The defendant was charged on August 22, 2014, and tried on October 5, 2015, approximately 13.5 months later.

The trial judge accepted an unsupported assertion by defence counsel that the defendant had attended court in person requesting a trial but was compelled to attend an early resolution meeting instead.

The appellate court found this assertion had no evidentiary foundation and was not supported by the defendant's affidavit.

The court held that the time to the resolution meeting should have been excluded from the Charter calculation, and that the remaining delay was within constitutional tolerance for a careless driving charge.

This is a preliminary inquiry decision concerning charges of trafficking in cocaine and possession of cocaine for the purpose of trafficking.

The Crown proceeded largely through filed 540(7) materials.

The court applied the test for committal, which requires determining whether there is evidence upon which a reasonably instructed jury could convict beyond a reasonable doubt.

The case involved circumstantial evidence and required careful analysis of inferences that could be properly drawn from the evidence presented.

A young person was charged with driving while impaired by a drug contrary to section 253(1)(a) of the Criminal Code following a single-vehicle collision.

The defence raised two issues: whether the arresting officer had reasonable and probable grounds to arrest, and whether the Crown proved beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant's ability to drive was impaired by a drug.

The court found that the officer had reasonable and probable grounds to arrest based on the totality of circumstances, including the accident, odour of marijuana, the defendant's admission of marijuana consumption, and observed signs of impairment.

However, the court found that the Crown failed to prove impairment beyond a reasonable doubt.

The Drug Recognition Expert's opinion was given limited weight due to concerns about the reliability of certain indicators relied upon and the significant time delay between the collision and the evaluation.

Both charges were dismissed.

The accused brought a section 11(b) Charter application seeking a stay of proceedings based on delay.

The charge involved driving a motor vehicle with excess blood alcohol.

The application was heard following the Supreme Court of Canada's landmark decision in R. v. Jordan, which established presumptive ceilings for trial delay.

The court found that while the net delay of 17 months and 21 days fell below the 18-month ceiling for provincial courts, the delay was unreasonable in the circumstances.

The defence demonstrated meaningful and sustained efforts to expedite the proceedings, the case was straightforward to somewhat more than straightforward, and the Crown failed to take reasonable steps to address delay.

The court granted the stay of proceedings.

The accused was charged with operating a motor vehicle while impaired by alcohol and with operating a motor vehicle with a blood alcohol concentration exceeding 80 milligrams per 100 millilitres of blood.

The Crown proceeded summarily.

The accused applied to exclude breath test results pursuant to section 24(2) of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, arguing that the officer lacked reasonable suspicion to demand an approved screening device sample and reasonable and probable grounds to demand an Intoxilyzer breath sample.

The trial judge found that the officer infringed the accused's section 8 Charter rights by making both demands without the requisite legal grounds.

The trial judge excluded the breath test evidence under section 24(2), finding that the seriousness of the Charter breach and the impact on the accused's liberty interests outweighed society's interest in adjudication on the merits.

Both charges were dismissed.

The defendant was charged with driving while impaired and driving with excess alcohol on June 22, 2015.

He brought a Charter application under Section 11(b) of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, alleging that his right to be tried within a reasonable time had been infringed and seeking a judicial stay of charges.

The total delay from charge to trial completion was 13 months and 8 days, falling below the 18-month presumptive ceiling established in R. v. Jordan.

The court applied the transitional framework and found that the case did not take markedly longer than it reasonably should have, considering the complexity of impaired driving cases and acceptable institutional delay under the previous Morin framework.

The application was dismissed.

The accused was charged with wilfully committing an indecent act in a public place in the presence of one or more persons contrary to section 173(1) of the Criminal Code.

The Crown alleged that the accused exposed his erect penis in a women's lingerie store in the presence of a woman and her eleven-year-old daughter.

The accused claimed he was displaying a six-inch silicon caulking object, not his penis, which he intended to use to model lingerie for his new girlfriend.

The court found the complainant's evidence credible and reliable, rejected the accused's testimony as riddled with contradictions, and convicted the accused.

The accused challenged the mandatory victim surcharge under Criminal Code section 737 as violating equality rights under section 15 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

The court found that the surcharge had a disproportionate impact on persons with mental disabilities.

The Crown sought to justify the violation under section 1 of the Charter by arguing the surcharge served pressing and substantial objectives of raising funds for victim services and holding offenders accountable.

The court rejected the Crown's section 1 justification, finding the legislation was not minimally impairing and that the deleterious effects on disabled persons outweighed the salutary effects.

This is a reverse onus judicial interim release (bail) hearing for FMD, charged with conspiracy to traffic cocaine and unlawfully import and traffic firearms across the Windsor-Detroit international border.

The Crown presented extensive audio and audio/video intercepted evidence from Project Kirby, a police investigation involving a paid police agent and undercover officers operating a covert store.

The evidence demonstrated FMD's role as the orchestrator and organizer of a sophisticated criminal enterprise involving multiple cocaine transactions totaling over 1.5 pounds and the trafficking of operational handguns.

The court found the Crown's case overwhelmingly strong and detained FMD on all three grounds: primary (flight risk), secondary (public protection), and tertiary (public confidence in the administration of justice).

Father brought a motion to change a custody and access order, seeking expanded access to his nine-year-old child, including alternating full weekends, Christmas holiday access, and travel to the United States.

Mother opposed the motion and sought to restrict access to day visits only.

The court found a material change in circumstances based on the passage of seven years since the original order and the fact that the original order's consent provision had become unworkable.

The court granted the father alternating weekend access but dismissed claims for expanded holiday access and travel, while imposing strict conditions regarding parental conduct, particularly regarding communication with the child about the litigation and the mother.